


home

by technicallyproficient



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicallyproficient/pseuds/technicallyproficient
Summary: She shrugs off her coat and walks towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist, her head coming to rest in the spot between his shoulder blades. The warm, honey scent of him smells like home.





	home

"You cannot save people,  
you can only love them."  
\- Anaïs Nin

* * *

Ellie closes the door of her car and huffs out a long, exhausted sigh. She is soaking wet, irritated, and _never_ covering a Saturday shift again.

The hint of sunshine behind the clouds had lured her into a false sense of optimism as she had headed to work that morning, all but patting herself on the back for sacrificing a relaxing Saturday at home to make a little extra cash. 

At about half three, though, the sunshine gave way to a torrential downpour that had yet to quit. And she was called out to respond to a domestic disturbance. 

By the time she and DC Harford had arrived on the scene, it had escalated significantly. Ellie had accompanied a young woman to the hospital by ambulance, leaving DC Harford to make an arrest on the scene. She had sat in the waiting room for what seemed like hours, a styrofoam cup of tea warming her palms while she tracked the movements of a few flustered nurses.

Once the woman had regained consciousness and had been adequately triaged, the nurses had led her back to a sectioned off room so that she could take the woman's statement. The woman, Jessica Davis, was a young brunette. Pretty, she had thought. Too young to be so bruised. 

"Jessica, my name is DS Miller. You can call me Ellie." She tried for a comforting smile, had hoped it masked the absolute horror she had felt at seeing someone like this.

She had patiently listened to Jessica give a formal statement, and then walked her through what to expect in the coming days. 

Ellie had left the hospital abruptly after finishing, nauseated from the antiseptic smell and feeling, vaguely, like she might pass out. How we ruin each other, she thought, just by the simple act of promising a lifetime together. 

She drives on, now, and lets herself be distracted by the brake lights ahead of her, tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel. She tries not to think about Jessica.

* * *

When she walks into the house Alec is washing dishes at the sink, the worn sleeves of his jumper rolled up past his elbows. The effects of the day are evident in the set of her shoulders and he notices immediately, shooting a sympathetic look her way when he hears her come in. 

“Hi. How was your day?”  

She shrugs off her coat and walks towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist, her head coming to rest in the spot between his shoulder blades. The warm, honey scent of him smells like home. 

“Shit,” she says, tightening her grip around his waist. “Yours?”

“Well. Tom and Daisy have forbidden me from playing FIFA with them ever again. Apparently I’m an embarrassment. And as for Fred… I told him this morning he couldn’t go to the park in just his pants. You know how that goes.”

She huffs out a half-laugh, feeling the tension in her shoulders ease at his mundane recap of the days events. This recently-blended family unit of theirs is loud and messy on its absolute best days, but she wouldn't change a thing. She loves them all fiercely. 

“Mmm. Can’t win with anybody today.”

“Seems that way. I’m almost afraid to try anything with you.”

“And you won’t get very far with an attitude like that.” She swats at his shoulder playfully, smirking at his bemused expression. “Arsehole.”

His laugh is airy and bright as he walks away from her, making his way towards the fridge. 

“We-ell, what if I told you I saved a plate for you? You hungry?”

The proud look on his face makes her crack her first real smile of the day, a gummy thing that warms his insides completely. She moves towards him and plants a firm kiss on his lips, a pathetic attempt to hide the tears that threaten to overflow at this simple gesture.

“That might be the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me. Just let me get out of these wet clothes and I’ll be right be back. You mind heating it up?”

“Course.”

She gives him one last watery smile before making her way upstairs, waiting until she’s out of his line of sight before allowing a few to tears to escape. 

As she changes into her pyjamas her minds casts about for a distraction, something to divert her attention from the day she's had. She can't yet think about the pattern of bruises, pale skin against a starchy hospital gown. Ellie notices the paperback sitting on her nightstand and smiles.

Since Trish Winterman, they have experienced a lull in cases: Broadchurch and the areas surrounding it have, blessedly, only needed police intervention for minor domestic disturbances and petty theft. She is glad to have safety restored, but knows that their small caseload has left Alec lost. He buys cheap mystery novels at Tesco's when he does the grocery shopping, making notes in the margins and underlining potential clues. He stops at the halfway mark and leaves the paperback on her nightstand, a silent request for her to indulge him, to challenge his theories and look for new leads.

Without a cause to give himself to, his passionate intensity has been redirected at her. It frightens her to be on the receiving end of it, this singularly-focused attention. Some days she is afraid she'll crumble beneath the weight of it. But perhaps more disconcerting is that it is reciprocated, that she now orients herself around Alec's existence.

Somehow, during the long hours and the us-against-the-world mentality they had sustained for years and years, she had grown dependent on him. She misses him when he isn't around, finds her mind drifting to the delicious scrape of his beard against her cheek during long shifts at work. 

There is nothing about her old life with Joe that she misses, littered as it was with false intimacy and lies. But, she reminds herself, it had been real to her once. She had structured her world around a man before, and was undone by its ending. Could she survive that again, if Alec left? Could her children survive it?

She scrubs her hands over her face and heads downstairs, willing her thoughts elsewhere. 

"New book already?" She calls out, following the scent of dinner into the kitchen. 

He looks up at the sound of her voice and beams at her, clearly excited with his new find. 

"Yeah. Daisy told me about it, actually. Supposed to have a proper case, with some false leads and shifty suspects." He pushes the plate towards her. "Nothing we can't handle." 

He is positively radiant in the false-brightness of their kitchen, his excitement about this fictitious case suddenly infectious. She loves him so much it aches. 

"Well, why don't you tell me about it while I eat. Maybe I can dive into it tonight." 

She lets him ramble on while she makes her way through some elaborate pasta dish he had prepared earlier, his voice pulling her away from her thoughts. She is grateful -- so grateful -- she has him to come home to. 

* * *

In the end, she doesn't pick up the paperback at all. About ten minutes into his diatribe about _The Suspect_ (the name of the book, she later learns) he notices the look of fatigue on her face, and gently leads her upstairs.

She wraps herself around him the second they get into bed, pushing herself so close she isn't sure where her body ends and his begins. If he is confused by her sudden clinginess, though, he does not say anything, simply content to run his fingers through her hair while she dozes. 

Hours later, after she has rolled away from him, she finds she cannot sleep.

She stares at the ceiling, content to count sheep until the sun rises, when suddenly he turns to face her and mumbles: "So, are we gonna talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Ellie."

She sighs and moves towards him, her hand sliding across the sheets to clasp his.

"Fine." 

He squeezes her fingers in support, listens to the calming breaths she takes.

"Had a domestic disturbance call today. A husband beating up on his wife. Was bad enough to send her to the hospital, had to wait to take a statement until after she had regained consciousness." She removes her hand from his to swipe at her eyes, furious at the tears spilling out. "Some husband he is. Claims to love her, and then beats the shit out of her every time he's had a few too many." 

"And it makes you think of Joe." 

It isn't a question, and at her silence he continues: 

"You know I wouldn't ever hurt you. Joe, and this man... They are aberrations, not the standard."

"I know you wouldn't ever hurt me on purpose..."

"But you're afraid of getting hurt anyways."

"He took so much from me, Alec. Not just my friends, or my marriage. He took everything. My whole world is different because of him, because I didn't see it. God, I slept right next to him for years and this whole time... he was thinking about an eleven year old, and I had no idea. I don't trust myself anymore." 

Her tears are flowing steadily now, and he adjusts himself so that he can wrap his arms around her, his hands rubbing circles on her back. 

"I didn't date. After Tess, I mean. Couldn't imagine loving anybody again after that, let alone trusting someone enough to open up. I drank too much, and even when I knew my heart was starting to get bad, I didn't do anything about it. Didn't see the point."

She moves her head back from its place on his shoulder, trying to meet his eyes in the darkness of the bedroom.

"Alec-"

"I know it isn't the same. I guess my point is... neither of us made it through our marriages unscathed. I'm scared too. Scared of this thing between us, and how much I rely on it, how important it is to me." He grabs her hand and places it on his chest. She can feel the knotty tissue of his pacemaker scar through his shirt. "But I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

He presses a soft kiss to her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.

They lay tangled together for a long time, both of them content to listen to the sound of the other's breathing. 

Ellie thinks about everything that she wants to say to him, letting whole conversations run through her mind. Does he know how much she loves their life together, how scared she is of losing it all again?

For now, she says, "I love you," and leaves it at that. 

It is enough to simply be here, in this bed with him. To be home. 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Eventually I'll write a story about Alec and Ellie that isn't even tangentially related to Healing Old Wounds, but today is not that day. It's 2019! We've all got some healing to do. 
> 
> (Questions/complaints/recommendations for future fics can be directed to @abbymlockhart on Tumblr. And a huge THANK YOU if you've read this story, or any of the others. I appreciate it more than you know!)


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